Trade Agreements can create opportunities for Americans and help to grow the U.S. economy.

The United States has free trade agreements (FTAs) in effect with 20 countries. These FTAs build on the foundation of the WTO Agreement, with more comprehensive and stronger disciplines than the WTO Agreement. Many of our FTAs are bilateral agreements between two governments. But some, like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement, are multilateral agreements among several parties.

The bulkiest results of Uruguay Round are the 22,500 pages listing individual countries’ commitments on specific categories of goods and services. These include commitments to cut and “bind” their customs duty rates on imports of goods. In some cases, tariffs are being cut to zero. There is also a significant increase in the number of “bound” tariffs — duty rates that are committed in the WTO and are difficult to raise.

The BBC seems remarkably sanguine about Obama’s threat and indeed seems to think it is worth repeating endlessly but without any critique of what Obama is saying….here the BBC randomly inserts the phrase into a report on other things Obama said but which are otherwise unrelated…

US President Barack Obama has urged young people to “reject pessimism and cynicism” and “know that progress is possible and problems can be solved”. Speaking in London, he said: “Take a longer, more optimistic view of history.”

Earlier, the US president visited the Globe theatre and watched actors perform scenes from Hamlet. It came a day after he said Britain would be at “the back of the queue” for US trade deals if it left the EU.

No need for that, nothing to do with the report.

There’s scant discussion on Obama’s claims of the glories of the EU being the result of Britain’s membership..

“The UK is at its best when it’s helping to lead a strong European Union. It leverages UK power to be part of the EU. “I don’t think the EU moderates British influence in the world, it magnifies it.”

The BBC suggests that the Brexit campaign needs to answer questions raised by Obama, curious that the BBC doesn’t similarly interrogate the Remain camp when they make sweeping claims of doom and anarchy if Britain goes independent and gave Osborne’s dodgy dossier from the Treasury a free pass with hardly a look askance.

Mr Obama reflects on “what went wrong”, saying: “There’s room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up.”

Mr Cameron, he said, became “distracted by a range of other things”. He also criticised former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, saying he had tried to claim the spotlight.

He also criticised what he called “free riders” in the interview, saying European and Gulf countries were calling for action against Gaddafi, adding: “But what has been a habit over the last several decades in these circumstances is people pushing us to act but then showing an unwillingness to put any skin in the game.”

Hang on though…a few weeks later, a week before he is due to come to Europe to peddle Cameron’s script on the marvels of the EU, he sees it all differently…..

Asked for his worst mistake while in office, Mr Obama named the failure to plan for the aftermath of Col Gaddafi’s ousting as Libyan leader, which sparked years of instability that are only just showing signs of easing.

What can have changed? Is he on the campaign trail for Cameron and any old cynical about-face will do? People will forget won’t they?….looks like the media has forgotten, so maybe he’s right and he’ll get away with it as the headlines are full of his dire warnings about Brexit.

US officials trying to rebuild and stabilize postwar Europe worked from the assumption that it required rapid unification, perhaps leading to a United States of Europe. The encouragement of European unification, one of the most consistent components of Harry S. Truman’s foreign policy, was even more strongly emphasized under his successor General Dwight D.Eisenhower. Moreover, under both Truman and Eisenhower, US policymakers conceived of European unification not only as an important end in itself, but also as a way to solve the German problem.

The use of covert operations for the specific promotion of European unity has attracted little scholarly attention and remains poorly understood

Marshall suggested that European countries in need of aid should join in drawing up a program for presentation to the United States. Great Britain and France invited twenty-two countries to participate in a conference to draft a blueprint for European reconstruction. Sixteen nations responded, forming a Committee for European Economic Cooperation.

DECLASSIFIED American government documents show that the US intelligence community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build momentum for a united Europe. It funded and directed the European federalist movement.

The documents confirm suspicions voiced at the time that America was working aggressively behind the scenes to push Britain into a European state.

The State Department also played a role. A memo from the European section, dated June 11, 1965, advises the vice-president of the European Economic Community, Robert Marjolin, to pursue monetary union by stealth.

It recommends suppressing debate until the point at which “adoption of such proposals would become virtually inescapable”.

When reporting the words of Obama perhaps the BBC should be making more effort to put a bit of context into that and remind us that the EU is one of the Americans’ pet projects so that we can judge his words more fairly.

So far, the mounting Falklands conflict has been met with deafening silence from Washington. …..[which] demonstrates an extraordinary level of indifference towards America’s closest ally.

Obama is keen to appease the likes of Hugo Chavez as part of his policy of engagement with dictatorial regimes, and does not want to rock the boat in Latin America. Thirdly, the alliance with Britain has been given extremely short shrift by the Obama team, who seemingly care little for the Anglo-American partnership or the broader transatlantic alliance. It is at times of crisis that you know who your real friends are.

Obama….Keen to appease dictators and those who run oppressive regimes…but quite happy to throw the democratic Brits to the sharks….and now keen to appease the EU and push the UK under a Euro-bus.

At 07:09 this morning on the Today programme we had a little heads up on the EU and Obama, and again no dismay or surprise at Obama’s blackmail but they did insist the Brexit campaign had to answer questions raised by Obama, though the BBC itself wasn’t bothering to tackle what he said in any critical way despite telling us that ‘controversy reigns over his words’. The BBC seems to hold the Brexiteers to a higher standard than the EU’s fellow travellers when having to explain themselves.

We heard later on from Justin Webb that the US doesn’t want to make free trade deals with individual countries and prefers to make them with big blocs…..not true….

The United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) entered into force on January 1, 2005. U.S. two-way trade with Australia was $26.7 billion in 2009, up 23 percent from 2004. U.S. goods exports were $18.9 billion in 2009, up 33 percent from 2004, and U.S. goods imports were $7.8 billion, up 3.5 percent from 2004.

Jon Sopel thinks that, ‘you know what’, Obama said what he said about the back of the queue not because he was trying to help Cameron, no, no, but because he believes it…and even when he leaves office that will be the US policy. Just a little helpful nudge from Sopel for the Remain campaign there.

Webb has usually managed to hold the line on Europe and give a balanced presentation on the Today programme but it all went a bit awry in this interview with the former head of UK Trade & Investment Sir Andrew Cahn and Former Labour Foreign Secretary and a member of Vote Leave Lord Owen.

Webb starts his interview well….raising an ‘important point’ that we do good trade now with the US that works perfectly well for us and that’s not likely to get worse if we leave the EU.

It goes down hill from there generally as Cahn feeds us a line that Britain created the single market, that Britain made Europe enlarge itself eastwards and it was Britain that made Europe liberal, and that Obama wants that influence to continue making Europe a more liberal, open, free trading place benefiting from Britain’s political wisdom [LOL]…you might be sceptical about that long list but Webb wasn’t insisting to Lord Owen that ‘Look Lord Owen, you’d want that wouldn’t you?’ suggesting that Webb was onboard with that argument however false and self-serving it is.

Lord Owen suggests that the EU will inevitably collapse due to the flaws in the structure of the Eurozone and we should leave rather than be dragged down with it. Webb grabs that idea of an EU falling apart and turns it on its head suggesting that Obama is saying ‘look at the state of Europe and we can’t afford to have a Europe without Britain in it’….Webb adds ‘..and that is quite telling isn’t it’.…thereby not only twisting Lord Owen’s point to defend the EU but raising his own interpretation from an interesting question to a point of fact….that the EU will be in peril without the UK. Why would that be? It’s primary raison d’être was to be a mechanism designed to defang Germany and prick the arrogance of the French and thus keep the peace. There was no role for Britain envisioned in that original purpose other than to encourage German/French entente cordial with a bit of cheerleading from the sidelines. Webb does note though that Cahn doesn’t deny that that the EU is a ‘sinking ship’ but Webb goes on to tell us we have the ‘best of both worlds’ being placed where we are right now which you might see as a pro-Remain statement.

What of the claim that the EU has protected us from fighting with each other? What really kept the peace?…Well you might think that having hundreds of thousands of US and British troops in Germany kept the peace and a German constitution that restrained military adventurism, never mind the constant threat of Soviet tank armies sweeping across the border which no doubt concentrated minds and stopped infighting…nowt to do with the EU structure as such, more to do with NATO….and never mind that Germany is now the dominant country making all the calls economically and on immigration…Germany’s unilateral decision to invite in the world will destroy Europe and in no way make it safer….and of course it is the same Obama whose foreign policy it was to stand back and let the war in Syria escalate and watch without concern as millions of people fled their homes and head towards Europe… Obama possibly not unhappy to see a white Europe invaded by people from the Middle East and Africa.

The most telling statement againsts staying actually came from the pro-Remain Cahn as he admitted that the Euro single currency was a historic mistake that is at the heart of the EU’s problems.

No exploration of that major admission…..if that is the case what is the answer? It can only be the reintroduction of national currencies and economic flexibility. Which means that EU political and economic ‘ever-closer union’ would have to be halted and a more flexible approach adopted allowing countries to swiftly adapt to changing circumstances instead of being hog-tied to the German mega-economy that forces them into poverty whilst Germany reaps all the rewards.

The EU needs to reform massively, the ‘reforms’ that Cameron claims he got were laughable and nothing more than a political con-trick. Without Britain leaving and forcing the EU to concentrate on the matter there will never be any genuine reform and the ideologically driven attempt to force so many vastly different nations into one ill-fitting Euro-empire will flounder on the rocks of the EU mandarins’ arrogance and ambitions.

Perhaps that is what is missing from the debate…just what is wrong with, and how badly wrong is, the European Union? Not only that but what are the risks attached to staying in the EU? All the attention is on the so-called risks of leaving but of those of being ever more closely tied to that ‘sinking ship’ are generally ignored when they are very, very relevant as the EU heads towards ever-closer union and will inevitably try to drag Britain in with it along with signing up to that ‘historic mistake’ of the single currency….made all the harder to refuse with a ‘remain’ vote.

Below is the BBC’s Katty Kay’s little party political broadcast on behave of the Remain campaign…..

The president’s former chief economic adviser defended Mr Obama’s decision to weigh in on Brexit so forcefully. It’s a bit like when your sister goes out with a bad date, Austan Goolsbee told me, you just have to say something. Truth is though, most Americans are not very focused on the June 23rd vote on whether Britain should stay in or leave the EU. They should be, Mr Goolsbee argued because there are knock on economic consequences. Anything that adds uncertainty to the global financial system poses a risk and Brexit, he says, does that because we don’t know what the impact will be on British and European banks’ ability to operate across continental borders.

29 Responses to The Whiphand

Back of the queue?
Does the USA only have a couple of people doing trade deals?
Deals worth billions.
Are they unable to carry out more than one set of negotiations at a time.

The truth is, if they want a trade deal they could do it immediately and it should take weeks if not days to arrange.
Step 1. Carry on as now with the EU rules regarding our trade with USA.
Step 2. Make any minor adjustments needed to complete our agreement with the USA.

How can this take 10 years?
Are the negotiators so incompetent.

Of course, we all know this is political and nothing to do with trade agreements.

Put me in charge of the negotiations and they would be done in under a week.

Can you imagine what the BBC would be saying if it had been President Bush making those comments ? Mardell this morning was eulogizing about Obama and how he had ‘rock star’ status here. Truth is Obama has been a useless President and would have presided over serious economic problems has fracking not saved his bacon .

Obama knows quite well that without UK there will be no EU. The Germans are not going to be able to bail out all the other nations on their own. The EU will collapse. So by following Project Fear’s agenda Obama is trying to make life easier for the USA and doesn’t give a tuppence about what OUR people feel.

Agree can’t wait for President Trump.Been getting onto some of the American websites and the people are having the curtain pulled back by Trump big time. The corruption is breathtaking. The people are awakening. Trump getting record breaking rally attendance all over USA .No special interests ,hes self funding. Tumbleweed from the BBC…

Not just BBC though .Where can an anti EU person go now for debate among like minded people.I thought I’d get abit of sense from Katie Hopkins on LBC .I know she is anti EU. Not a mention….

DT has closed its comment sections Probaly until after the referendum.

Daily mail comments section on any EU subject clearly hijacked .

How convenient that the Leave group were chosen from three groups by the “independant ” QUANGO The Audit Commision and just happens to have the cabinet ministers and no Nigel Farage who seems to have been marginalised.

I think Brexiteers will still vote no but waverers will be scared out of their wits.On the plus side when the brown stuff hits the fan in EU I can remind people of my vote.

I am afraid Deborah that is all we will be able to do if the sheep decide to go down that road . The MSM is jumping all over Boris at the moment. Hopefully he will continue to hold his nerve and start to highlight some of the other “issues” that nobody wants to talk about. Unfortunately The media are more interested in a “wankfest” at the moment (excuse my language) than actually having a sensible debate. I guess it is cheap copy. The chattering classes and of course Aunty more than willing participants.

This was always the risk when the official Brexit campaign wanted to play the media game and not our own. Hence Remain can play the state backed ” project fear” based on not more than just a few calculations on the back of a fag packet. And the real issues as I see it – inward migration, overpopulation, loss of cultural integrity, loss of sovereignty are not really talked about by “Leave” through fear as being seen to be negative.

This is precisely the reason why Farage has been sidelined which was a great pity as without him and the pressure he applied there would be no referendum.

There is however a chance that after witnessing the fawning smirking Dave sucking up to his to his stateside buddy who has just told us we will be crap without Junker and his mates. People may well wake up a bit and discover a bit of self respect – however I am not confident! It is still all to play for and as regards the waverers if this is all it takes to completely decide them to vote for Remain then I suspect they would never vote for Leave anyway.

I know of only one person, young and old, who is going to vote for Remain. This group I know must amount to about 60 or 70 people. I am fast coming to the conclusion that this referendum vote will indeed be rigged. The word democracy seems to have censored from all political debate, yet our freedom and voting rights in determining our own laws should be for us, the British people to decide, not people from other countries, and our ability to determine what we want from our politicians and how we want our society to be shaped is for us to decide , not people from other countries, the question of democracy should override and therefore preclude any further discussion on the subject. It is a no brainer.

I know I’m getting on in years and my wife sometimes tells me I’m losing it, -marbles I think, but surely, don’t most people realise this basic fundamental fact?

Democracy must at the core of all referendum discussion. It is currently underplayed by Leave.

Farage is already suspicious of the possibility of rigging. Farage would wipe the floor with anyone on the Remain side but he is being elbowed aside with the lame excuse that he is too Marmite a figure. Rubbish, So Boris, Gove et al are not Marmite figures!

I fear the worst, I fear a rigged vote, I hope I’m wrong.I do not trust the establishment or the money men. Read what Farage thinks below.

I think the best tactics now would be to ignore Obama himself but instead go after Cameron for standing grinning while Obama threatened the UK. The left will find it difficult to pass up an opportunity to attack Cameron and this could cause splits amongst the Euriners.

The jumping upon Boris’s remarks has a whiff of premeditated co-ordination about it and the Leave campaign needs to start some of its own. Hamstrung by the fact it doesn’t have the might of the BBC behind it to do the shit-stirring.

Anyone who thinks the vote on the EU is going to be about us leaving wants their bumps feeling!

When Denmark voted against the Maastricht treaty they did a renegotiation and then a second referendum until they got it ‘right’.
Same thing has happened in other countries too.

ALL of the talk from the remain group has been centered around the loss of trade treaties and access to markets, and they have completely ignored the political union which is the main reason every one on the leave side is concerned about.
After the UK vote there will be votes in France, Holland, and Denmark, and it is likely the EU in its present state will not survive, meaning that we stand a good chance of returning to a European trade agreement without the unnecessary political union.

We account for 13% of EU imports from the USA and 20% of EU exports to the USA
Only German accounts for more.

The USA needs us. Without us their economy would collapse.
The EU needs us. Without us it will not exist anymore.
But we don’t need the EU that is clear from the data.
We deserve respect, not threats from cameron and that kenyan guy.

One thing for sure, we will not be leaving the EU. By Fair means or foul.
Too much is at stake.

Did not the BBC news report last night some protests somewhere in EU land against the “trade deal” with the U.S. which is moving rapidly, not (when you have 29 sets of vested interests to square), to a conclusion!

Why the heck don`t we do a swap with Turkey?
We leave the EU-and let Turkey take our place for a five year period?
Number of stars stay on the flag, the Irish can still speak English if they still need English translations at the outposts?
Works for me-and popcorn for 55 million people(once we`ve sent the traitors and excess migrants back to Brussels and stateless gimps for Islam).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36120808
The UK could take up to 10 years to negotiate trade deals with the US if it leaves the EU, Barack Obama has said.
I don’t think that many US businessmen will be happy with his threats ? Trade works both ways .
What has Donald Trump said about this ?

‘Surrender your sovereignty to Germany or I will block your trade!’ .
Imagine if Hitler had said that to our fathers, grand fathers and Churchill eighty years ago.
Today we have Car Moron, our ‘used car salesman’ waving his ‘big EU deal’ comparable to Chamberlain and his ‘peace in our time’ paper.
Where the heck are the rest of his ‘Conservative’ Cabinet and Tory MPs ? This is not looking good

The disgraceful comments by Obama on the EU referendum while in the UK and the BBC’s fawning approach to Obama should focus our minds on a number of truths.
1. Our own Prime Minister has engineered this situation. It is little short of traitorous to encourage another country’s leader to interfere in the host country’s internal politics in his way. If we vote to leave the EU then Cameron’s position is untenable and he should resign forthwith. His lackeys Osborne, May et al should go too.
2. America has undermined Britain and its world position consistently ever since Lend Lease was arbitrarily withdrawn in 1945. Even prior to that, the USA was plotting to undermine British trade and destroy Britain’s empire at the end of the War. America used Suez in 1956 to threaten the pound and remove British influence in the Middle East. There is no Special Relationship beyond intelligence sharing and America’s use of UK forces to give a false impression of coalition in its unwise imperialist interventions.
3. America has always erroneously seen the EU as in its strategic interests. The destabilising effect of the EU on eastern and Southern Europe seems to be ignored . The American hypocrisy in ignoring the undemocratic nature of the EU is breathtaking. America’s only hope in Europe is the UK not the EU. The strategic influence of a post unification Germany is proving disastrous . Margaret Thatcher was right to have her reservations about unification.
4. The British have a habit of not liking to be pushed around. Let’s hope we vote Out in June and give Obama a clear signal that his views are not appreciated by our independent nation.

For our US readers: I would think by now, the US is well versed in the OBHAMA ‘theatrical displays’ (employed for the BBC world service sound bites) of the sort organised by our own (discredited heir-to Blair) cloned PM and even the more previous ruinous Gordon Brown all conspired to this end – forced EU integration. The big difference between UK and US is the persistent lies told to us – since 1975 by our own elected left and right politicians Harold Wilson onwards. We don’t trust them anymore. It really is the end of our UK democracy. That is what is at stake here the EU will collapse whether we stay “IN’ or ‘OUT’ it is not a United States of Europe moment, but an insidious socialist trade union that has nothing to do with free trade with the rest of world. It is closed shop, a union picket line, a protection zone that has ‘no protection’, no border police, no army, no navy and no morals. This is not democracy in action.

Read St George and weep how we the Brits stand to loose everything, our history our ‘quaint’ customs, our unique identity (bulldog), our charitable nature and our money (£) including the city of London all will be ‘erased’. St George ‘spirit’ is all that stands now between us and and annihilation if the BBC propaganda unit wins (financed by the EU).

Read St Georges day and a short history HOW THE EU AFFECTS ENGLAND (pdf) of what all this means to Englishman and the consequences for us all. Including our ability to support the US will not be possible post EU referendum. NATO will be pointless as the EU is planning its own ‘Army, Navy and Airforce (except it hasn’t and won’t as it is anti war coalition that will never ever fight for what is right and surrenders to Islam on a daily basis.

Yes, one of the mistakes many Americans make is to think that the EU is the European equivalent of the USA. Obama is one who does not understand the difference. For many people , not just Americans, Europe is a country. It is not their fault , it is just lazy ignorance and I include Obama in that. Apart from anything else, he seems to be a very lazy person and not at all curious about the world around him . Not good for a US President. What a contrast with Putin. Putin may be a bastard , but he is not stupid.

“Yes, one of the mistakes many Americans make is to think that the EU is the European equivalent of the USA. Obama is one who does not understand the difference. For many people , not just Americans, Europe is a country. It is not their fault , it is just lazy ignorance and I include Obama in that.”

Mistake? Or do they simply know the way its heading?

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